


When It's Over

by demonmadej



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Eddie Kaspbrak, Angst, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Boys Kissing, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Endgame Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, F/M, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Hopeful Ending, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Language, Oblivious Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Scared Richie Tozier, Soft Richie Tozier, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonmadej/pseuds/demonmadej
Summary: Because Richie wants Eddie back in his life again. After what they'd been through as kids, and after what they're going through now. He needs him and he doesn't want to be without him ever again.He loves him.He still loves him.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 42





	When It's Over

Sitting side by side of Richie's hotel room bed, Eddie is holding his broken arm in the same way that he did when he was young. Terrified and protective, staring down at his arm bending the wrong way. Richie remains beside him, hands grasping at the edge of the bed.

Everyone and everything has some long-forgotten memory from childhood attached to it now, and this is no exception. The memories come back so hard it's almost painful. Sitting on benches in the summer or side by side at the movies, both of them holding the edge of their seats, but neither ever making the move to close the distance. Just sitting side by side, like they are now. Richie feeling the same old fear.

But Eddie almost died back there. He could have been killed. It's unbearable. And yet now, with his broken arm... it brings back all the old feelings. Feelings that came back quickly, at first sight in the Chinese restaurant, but still. Feelings.

"Uh.....I was thinking," Richie says, feeling the thick tension down to his fingers, which were mere inches away from Eddie's thigh, "When this is over for good..."

Eddie, still staring down at his broken wrist, pulls a face, a pouting, incredulous disdain. The same face. It's amazing how even after all these years, it's the same face. The face Eddie had pulled against him so many times. Hundreds of times. And this time it means, so clearly, you think this will ever be over?

"...when this is over, all of it, I think you should come to L.A."

Eddie glances over, still hung up on the when this is all over part. The assumption that any of them will survive it. "What?"

"I think you should come to L.A.," Richie says again, feeling surer now. "With me. You should come live in L.A."

Eddie lifts his head, finally, to look over at Richie fully. He blinks. "What are you talking about?"

"You. Me. Sun and Sand." It seems simple when it's put like that. But Eddie's face turns sharp. His face goes inward, like when a joke used to go too far.

Richie, be serious.

But the fact is, he's never been more serious about anything in his entire life. It's been a long time, and he's forgotten so much, but now, he can't believe he ever forgot Eddie in the first place. How could he have, when Eddie meant was so much to him? So unbelievably much. More than anything in the world, maybe.

He shifts, half turning to face Eddie, his hand on the edge of the bed moving without quite making it to where he wants, but now close enough to be brushing his leg. "I mean it. Eddie."

"I have a life, Richie," Eddie snaps, hoping that this would be the end of this conversation. "You know, a thing in New York."

"Well, Fuck New York. Weather is way better out west. You ever been? You'd like it."

Eddie gaps at him, starting to piece together, that maybe this isn't a joke at all. That Richie just wants him to abandon everything that he's built in the last twenty years and move to California. California of all places. A place so far away from where he lives.

He hesitates, "I've got a business, Rich. A good business, employes. You know I can't just leave th-"

"Fuck your business!"

Eddie's forehead furrows, in that hauntingly familiar way. Irritation and affection all mixed up in one. A little pity in the twist of his mouth. Richie might have caught him off guard, but they're back in a familiar pattern. Lightly bullying, Richie pulling Eddie along on some madcap, foolish adventure. Any fantasy to play act out in the barrens.

Seriously, so seriously it's almost a joke, Eddie says, "Richie, I have a wife-"

Which is just about the last straw. Hysterically, Richie explodes. He throws his hands in the air, he bursts out laughing.

"Fuck your wife!"

And Eddie, sweet, polite, mamma's-boy Eddie Kaspbrak, absolutely retreats at this outcry. It's almost comical Richie thinks, it's almost the funniest thing he's ever seen.

Eddie recoiling in disgust at the concept of fucking his wife. That's not it, of course. Eddie's mad that Richie would disrespect his wife like that. Dismiss her so rudely and so out of hand. Eddie who would never insult a woman, and never abandon someone he committed himself to. It's not Eddie's way to run away from something like that, from a promise. Never has been. It's why he's back in Derry now. With a broken arm.

But still, Richie means it. Fuck that stupid woman he married. Whoever the hell she is. She's probably perfectly nice, but Eddie deserves more than nice. Deserves someone who knows how brave and amazing he is. Deserves to be held and, and...fuck her. Fuck her who always gets to be near Eddie when Richie doesn't. Fuck her.

"No, I'm sorry that's not what I..." Richie backtracks. His hand on the bed retreats onto his lap. "I'm sorry. I just...I just don't want to forget you. Not again."

It's not quite right, not enough. Eddie looks back at his broken arm. The others went to find stuff to splint it with. This might be the only moment they have alone together before the end. And once it's over, Richie has a feeling that they'll all drift apart once again, and quickly. He has to make Eddie promise now, or else he'll demure later. Or else they'll forget, or shrug it off. Or... or something else that Richie doesn't want.

Because Richie wants Eddie back in his life again. After what they'd been through as kids, and after what they're going through now. He needs him and he doesn't want to be without him ever again.

He loves him.

He still loves him.

"Forget me?"

"Like before. We all left, and forgot."

"I know."

"I don't want to forget you again. And if you were nearby... I mean, I couldn't forget you, could I? If you were around. Right next door. Or..."

Fuck your wife. Sitting between them like a weight.

The panic response: Richie makes a joke. Sort of.

"Or you could fuck me instead." He couples it with a playful, non-committal shrug like it's just one of several options on the table. Maybe it doesn't come out quite as he meant. Double meanings. If only he could clarify that he wants Eddie to fuck his brains out without being crude.

This, thankfully, breaks most of the tension. Thank god. Eddie doesn't laugh, but he huffs and shakes his head a little ruefully and looks back at his busted arm.

"Richie, come on," he sighs. "I can't just leave everything. Even if I don't die this week, I just can't walk from everything.

Richie has the urge to take him by the arms and shake him. If his arm wasn't broken, he might have done it. As it is, Richie puts a hand on Eddie's leg, just barely above the knee. He's touched Eddie thousands of times, hundreds of times, it feels like, in the past two days alone. Taken every opportunity to touch him. To knock shoulders with him and chuck his arm and shove him and hand him beer and brush fingers over a photograph. But it's never enough. And this isn't enough, though somehow it's more, so much more than anything before.

It's intimate. It's purposeful. It's better than brushing pinkies sitting next to each other on a bench in the park waiting for Bill to show up. It's... adult and it means something serious.Eddie looks down at the hand on his knee. Richie gazes at Eddie's face. Richie tries to read a thousand thoughts that Eddie must be thinking. The dusty catalog of memories he must be skimming through.

"You can, though. I mean, Eddie, you can leave everything if you want. I'm asking... I mean, I don't want you to leave me. I mean, I fucking love you." Embarrassingly, his voice cracks. He has to swallow before saying anything else. "I always have."

Eddie lifts his eyes. He hasn't moved. His whole body is tense and suspicious. On edge like he's waiting for the punchline any second now "Always? What the hell does that mean?"

And Richie... well for Richie, it means his entire childhood has a new coloration to it. All those memories he only half-remembered for twenty years, all those jokes about first crushes and first traumas, all coming rushing back. All clear and bright and saturated. 

Eddie.

They met in first grade, and then it was ten years of Eddie, Eddie. Their devastating, horrifying thirteens. Their strange fourteens, waiting for something horrific around every corner. Richie's parents moving away during their fifteens, Richie going with them. Standing around near the quarry the day before he left. Hugging everyone goodbye, Bill and Ben and Mike and Stan, and then holding Eddie a bit longer, and coming away crying. Trying to write letters, but that falling away. And then it all fell away.

But somewhere deep it stayed. And it came back the moment he saw Eddie standing in the back room of the Jade of the Orient. Same face. Same person. Same old feelings. Back in a rush like a kick to the balls.

"It means I'm in love with you."

Eddie blinks. Turns a little. "You don't even know me."

The same tiny voice. Twenty-seven years later and he's got the same little voice, same fast way of speaking, spitting out words sharp as razors.

"But I do. You're the same. You're still Eddie Kaspbrak and I loved you when we were thirteen and I love you now. And if you are different, which you're not, I love you anyway."

If Richie ever thought in those terms as a kid he never said them out loud. Couldn't have dreamed it. The words, if they occurred in his mind, never could have made it to his mouth. And it wouldn't have meant the same thing then, even if he did say it.

What he means now is that he would die for Eddie if he had to. But he would rather spend his whole life with him. Talk to him constantly. Sit by him always. Wake up to him and go to sleep with him. Fill his unnecessary prescriptions and sit in waiting rooms on unnecessary doctor visits. Listen while he describes something he recently read about a new disease. He wants to do all that and more, more and more, forever. He wants it so much that his chest hurts.

He feels like puking.

He loves Eddie Kaspbrak way too much.

A new admission: "I carved our initials into the kissing bridge. I love you so much. I couldn't say it, but I felt it."

Eddie whispers quietly, holding his arm even closer against himself. "Fuck you."

That stings. The pain in Richie's chest takes on a different timbre. With a shaking breath, he says, "Oh." Then he moves away from Eddie on the bed, standing up. Then sitting down back again.

"Richie," Eddie says, looking up from his arm. He sounds sad. Hesitant. "I..."

The world goes blurry, and Richie realizes that his eyes are full of tears. He hasn't cried in a long time, but he can't stop it now. His eyes well up and a couple of tears slip down, just before Richie turns away from Eddie to take off his glasses. Under the pretense of cleaning, he tries to pull himself back together. It doesn't work.

What did he expect? That Eddie would just jump into his arms and say, 'Oh, Richie take me away from this horrible place and horrible life. Take me away and love me forever!'

God, he felt like such a fucking idiot.

"Uhm," his voice sounds wrecked. Too tight and too ragged. Why can't he do anything with dignity? Why is this so hard? Why is going so wrong? "I can go look for painkillers, downstairs, if you want."

"I have painkillers."

Richie chuckles, he can't help it. "Course you do. Doctor Kaspbrak always to the rescue."

"I'm sorry," Eddie says. It's unlike him, to take teasing like that, even gentle teasing. He always had some retort, even if they were lame ones. "Richie, come here. Richie, look at me." Richie can't. He can't because he can't let Eddie see that he's crying. His eyes are probably bright red. He can't let Eddie see that.

"Where on the Kissing Bridge?"

That wasn't the question that he expected. It's been a long time, but he remembers it clear as day. That memory, never really left him. "On the side nearer to town. On the upper rail. Near one of the posts. R plus E."

He'd been thinking about it on his walk through town. If it was still there. If anyone had ever looked at it and guessed what it meant.

"R plus E." A hand touches Richie's back, lighter than a feather. "Right? Not like, R and E in a heart or RE close together. R plus E."

Shaking out of his guts, Richie turns, creeping around like there's some horrible surprise waiting for him. It would be just like that stupid fucking clown to take this agonizing moment and somehow make it worse. But when he turns around it's just Eddie.

Eddie with his broken arm and sad eyes and tight expression. There's no judgment on his face. Less pity than Richie expected. Just the same wonderful face, looking at him expectantly. So Richie nods. R plus E.

"I saw it," Eddie says. "When I left for college. Long after you had left. Just on the way out of town, I stopped for a second to look at the river, say goodbye, I guess. And there was this carving. Worn down a little but there. R plus E."

"Oh."

"I thought about you, then," Eddie says like he's not quite sure. Like the memory is still coming back. "I think...I think I imagined hoping it was for us."

Richie thinks, what's happening? And then Eddie's hand, the not broken one, is reaching out. His hand touches Richie's, where it's limp in his lap.

"I mean, Richie... I didn't know, I mean... I don't..."

A deep, primal part of Richie says, 'This is the Moment.' Eddie is never going to find the words, but now is the time. Eddie is as good as holding his hand, and as a thirteen-year-old, that's all he would have wanted.

Richie leans forward, way too fast, and misses. His mouth leans not cleanly against Eddie's, but more on his upper lip, to the side. Their noses clash a bit, and the corner of Richie's glasses hit cheekbone and go crooked.

When he tries again, it ends up better. Mouth to mouth, their teeth click but not too roughly. Richie feels like he's floating. He feels like if he died right now, he would still be happy. Eddie's hand clutches his own so tightly that it's painful. The best pain that he's ever felt though. They're kissing, Richie leans in more and puts his hand on Eddie's thigh. He wants everything, but most importantly he never wants it to end.

Eddie jerks away with a curse, the hand that had been clutching Richie's disappearing in a flash.

"Fucking arm," Eddie mumbles, cradling his arm once again. "Shit!"

"Oh shit, I'm sorry!" Richie leaps to his feet and goes towards the door. "I'll go get your painkillers." Then he whirls back. "I'll set it back in place for you."

"What the fuck? No!"

"It won't hurt as much if it's in place. I'll pop it back, it's easy."

"No!" Eddie screeches, throwing himself back on the bed to escape. "Don't you dare fucking touch me!"

Richie stops with his hands outstretched, and Eddie freezes too. They've had this moment before.

"I did it before," Richie slowly says. The memory of that afternoon had been there before, but now it clarifies to a bright, sharp point. The clown across that horrible shitty kitchen, taunting them. Richie screaming, Eddie screaming, Richie holding Eddie's face, trying to get him to look away. Painfully bright, that part. Snapping his arm back into place later floats in after the clear, bright vision of Eddie looking at him in abject horror. First Eddie, and then his arm.

"Don't do it again, please."

"I'd never hurt you, Eds." He means it in every way possible to mean something. "Never, I love you."

Now that he's finally said it once before, it feels way easier to say. Like it's the only truth that he's ever known. Eddie, half sprawled across the bed, stares at him a little like he's never seen him before. Like he's seeing something brand new. Maybe he finally believes what Richie's been saying.

"I'll get the painkillers." Richie spins on his heel and practically throws himself out the door. The hallway is so quiet that it feels genuinely creepy. Richie can feel his heart pounding against his chest.

All he can think about is Eddie. His mouth. Kissing him. Missing him already. His hand feels hot from being gripped so tightly, and Richie makes his way numbly around the halls. He finds Eddie's room, grabs the medicines out of the bathroom as fast as he can and dashes out back into the hall.

It's not a long walk back, but all the way Richie imagines the life they could have together. He spins lifetimes in the length of twenty-seven feet. Eddie by the sea. Eddie driving in traffic. Eddie with a kid in his arms, anxious and ready to hand it back. A lifetime of little moments Richie wants to live in and savor and have.

When it's over. First, it all has to be over.

His hands-on the door handle, a scream comes from inside. Muffled and stifled, but still a scream nonetheless. Richie feels his heart plunge into his stomach.

"Eddie!" He screams, about ready to scream forever. He shoulders the door open, which opens way too easily, and charges inside to find— nothing. Nothing. Everything is fine. Eddie is sitting up on the edge of the bed, his arm against his chest.

"Fucking hell," Richie pants, "What the fuck happened? Are you okay?"

Eddie lifts his arm. "I put it back." His arm is straight, no longer bent at an awkward angle. "It does feel better," Eddie says with an affable, embarrassed shrug.

Relief washes over Richie, and all the panic he had disappeared. Dropping the bag of medicine by the door, he as good as runs over to Eddie, crossing to him in a few steps, puts both of his hands on his face and kisses him. Hard, pressing and needful.

"Fuck, I could kiss you right now."

Eddie laughs, and Richie can feel it against his entire body and face. "I think you just did, idiot."

"I was so scared. I leave you alone for one second and..." Their foreheads are touching, which is about as intimate and magnificent a thing as Richie could ever imagine. "I could kiss you."

"Okay."

"I might just do that."

Eddie smiles, and Richie can feel it too.

So he does just what he said he was gonna do. He stays standing, leaning over Eddie and kissing him as soundly as he knows how to. He wants to make Eddie feel loved, cherished, and valued. In just one kiss, he wants Eddie to know and feel everything that he feels, has felt and will feel in the future. He wants Eddie to know. He needs Eddie to know. He wants him to feel it so strongly that there will be no forgetting it later.

No leaving Derry, and forgetting each other, and letting it all drift away. He kisses Eddie deeply and lovingly, like one kiss could tattoo onto his soul with all Richie's devotion and love. So that neither of them will ever forget, or doubt Richie and his love.

Eddie groans lightly, in a good way, and Richie feels that his soul has burst into thousands of fireworks.

They finally part. Richie panting goes to grab the bag of medicine bottles. He dumps them all out on the bed, and he and Eddie sort through them together.

"No, that one's for anxiety. That one's for skin irritation...that one as well...no, Richie, Jesus, that's Adderall, read the fucking label."

They laugh and finally find some high dose painkillers that Eddie got prescribed after some kind of dental surgery. He doesn't go into it.

"Are these fucking opiates? Damn, Eds, you're a real druggie, aren't you?"

"Fuck you, dude," Eddie says, without any real vitriol, before he pops the pills into his mouth, dry, and swallows them.

"Shit, man." Richie takes one for himself, and one of the anxiety pills, and goes to the bathroom for water. Eddie's been taking pills his whole life. Richie couldn't dry swallow a pill to save his own life.

"When do you think the others will get back?" Eddie asks as Richie comes back to sit on the edge of the bed once again.

"Soon, I guess. Or never, because IT got them."

"Don't say that."

"Sorry. Jesus, I wish we could've just taken you to a hospital. Get a real cast and... you'd be safe in a hospital."

Eddie shakes his head with a resigned drop of his shoulders. The weight of the world on him. "Not in Derry. We're not safe anywhere in Derry."

"Yeah..."

What are they supposed to do now? There isn't anything to talk about, there's just the looming horror of their situation, the sense that they'll die at any second, the fact that they've missed twenty-some years of each other's lives. There isn't anything to talk about because there's everything to talk about. Their whole lives.

But there's time, Richie thinks. There's going to be time. When all this is over, they'll be able to catch up on everything. Every embarrassing college story, every romantic date that had gone wrong, every awful set bombed in a basement, every car accident, every long drive to a gig, every single lost moment discussed and cataloged. Years and years to discuss years and years. 

Eddie seems to be thinking the same thing, because he says, out of nowhere, "I'll think about L.A."

"That's as good as a yes, to me. That's a yes. I'll take it." Richie puts his hands on Eddie's knee.

"You'll take it?"

"I'll take you anywhere, babe. Anywhere at any time in any way, you'll have me."

"Christ, that's... that's... I can't believe you would say that to me."

"Aww, you're blushing. You like it." With his free hand, he wriggles a finger against Eddie's ear. Eddie flinches away, screaming, laughing, and Richie keeps wriggling his finger against Eddie's ear, his cheek, feeling how warm and soft his skin is.

It's the happiest he's been in years. In twenty-seven years.

"Richie!" Eddie is howling, laugh-screaming. "Richie, stop!! Stop, oh my god!" And he does stop, but he leaves his hand at Eddie's cheek, his forearm resting on Eddie's shoulder, one finger idly tracing the shell of Eddie's ear.

A life like this. Little moments like this. And Richie could be happy. Eddie smiling shyly, blushing, but not shoving Richie away, not mad at him. Richie leans into presses his lips against Eddie's.And Eddie smiles into it, and Richie can feel it once again.

And when all of this is over they'll go to L.A., and be happy in the sun and sand. Together. Finally free of all this bullshit and finally together.

Finally, Richie thinks. Fucking Finally. Finally, they'll have what they deserve and always wanted.


End file.
